by Raven Hart
“William—I have to tell you—” I froze in midsentence. The vampire I’d seen in my dream the night I was with Connie was standing with Werm on the other side of William. The punk-spiked reddish hair and the grisly scar at his throat were just like I’d seen in my dream—my prophetic dream, as it turned out.
“You’re Hugo…?” I said, hoping to be wrong. He was grinning broadly toward the group of vampires on the boat. How in the name of hell had he slipped into Savannah without us knowing?
One man stepped out in front of the group of vampires on deck.
“No, mate, that’s Hugo,” the punked vamp said.
“Captain Thorne, I presume,” Hugo said. He was tall and powerfully built. Golden hair hung to the collar of his long coat and he had a neatly trimmed reddish beard. He looked the way I’d always imagined a Viking would look, only cleaner and without the shield and bloody sword. This version felt a lot more dangerous than your average Thor. Crap. My dream had been completely wrong. That’s the trouble with prophecies. They’re harder to figure out than French movies with subtitles.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” William said coolly. Even I could tell he didn’t mean it.
“William, I—” I tried again.
Not now, Jack, he said to my mind.
“But—”
In a booming voice, the vampire answered, “I’m Hugo. I’m certain you’ve heard my name before.”
“I need to warn you,” I said, grabbing William’s arm.
It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? William kept his attention on the stranger.
“No, you don’t understand. It’s not him, it’s—”
Hugo was approaching the gangplank. A woman, shielding her face with the hood of her cloak, stepped forward and followed him. Two humans stayed where they were on deck.
The foolish hope I’d nursed on the breakneck ride over here—that she hadn’t come with him, that for some reason she’d stayed behind—shriveled and died.
You know how time slows down in your dreams? And events happen you’re powerless to stop because you’re paralyzed? You’re unable to speak, unable to move. You’re only able to watch in horror as your nightmare unfolds in slow motion, frame by agonizing frame. That was what was happening now. I couldn’t make myself speak.
She took another step forward and the mist was back, just as in my dream of the punk vamp. It rose off the river like something alive and with its own mind. A security light on a pole above the dock shone down on her, forming an unholy halo around her head. The corona and her flowing cloak made her look like a Madonna in one of those Renaissance paintings.
“No, I don’t believe I have heard of you,” William lied. Evidently master vampires could lie to each other without fear of retribution.
“No matter, my…friend.” Hugo waved his hand dismissively. “My home is on the other side of the world. Under normal circumstances our kin might never have met.”
If William recognized the woman yet, he didn’t let on. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit, then?” He’d reverted to the old-fashioned form of speech he sometimes used with other really old blood drinkers.
Hugo was on solid ground now. I could feel the tension in William as Hugo walked closer, hand extended. “I came as soon as I heard,” he answered, then smiled a feral smile, not bothering to hide his impressive set of fangs. His deep voice made me wonder what else he had an impressive set of.
William shook hands with him. Although all seemed normal enough on the surface, even a mortal would’ve been able to pick up on the strain. This was what humans called a real tension convention. With my heightened perception, I felt like someone was busting up the sidewalk under my feet with a jackhammer.
“Since you heard what?” William asked. My sire had always had the best poker face I’d ever seen and it didn’t desert him now.
Hugo laughed like William had made a very funny private joke. He released William’s hand and clasped his shoulder, briefly patting it in a gesture that looked like genuine affection. “Why, since I heard that some brave blood drinker of Reedrek’s bloodline had the courage and strength to vanquish him for all eternity,” he said. “To the good of us all.”
“Should I assume he was your sire as well?” William carefully maintained his neutral expression. I noticed he used was rather than is. “How do you know what happened? Surely your psychic connection to your sire is not strong enough to communicate over so many thousands of miles.”
Hugo chuckled again. “Yes, Reedrek was my sire as well. As to how I knew, let’s just say it’s a small world. What is it the humans say? Good news travels fast.”
William forced a smile. “Indeed,” he said. “So you’re not here to avenge him?”
Hugo’s booming laughter seemed scarier than his show of fang. “Heavens no. I came to make sure the old devil is truly dead.”
Seeing an opening, I grabbed William by the shoulder again, but he shook me off. The other vampire ignored me and made a half turn toward the woman. His expression changed into something I can’t describe other than to say it was evil and somehow…predatory. I tensed and felt William do the same.
“I believe you know my mate,” Hugo said, and reached out to the woman in the cloak.
The look of confusion on my sire’s face made something die inside my already dead heart. I could see all the progress we’d made—him finally treating me more or less like an equal, us learning to trust each other after so many decades—going straight down the drain.
“I’m sorry, William,” I said. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. Not like this.”
He looked at me and blinked, still not understanding. It was too late to warn him now. I could only apologize and hope he killed me quick and didn’t make me linger.
The woman stepped up beside Hugo and he encircled her with his arm as if she was his possession. She reached up with both hands and gently slid the cowl of the hood off of the back of her head to reveal the rich gold of her hair. I took in a deep, sharp breath. She looked just like I remembered her from my vision of the slaughter of William’s family. I shifted my attention to William’s face. I didn’t really want to see his reaction but it was like when you come upon a grisly car wreck while driving along, minding your own business. You don’t want to look because you know the sight will sicken you. But you can’t help it.
“Hello, Mother,” said the young one standing next to Werm, the one I’d hated on sight in my dream and hated even more now. He’d been in on this from the beginning. Then his words sank in and the rest of the story hit me like a thunderbolt. I remembered my most recent dream, the one where William had saved him from my ripping, tearing fangs.
This one’s mine, William had said in the dream. I thought he’d meant to take the kill for himself but that wasn’t it.
I want your life. I want your sire. They should have been mine, the punk had claimed before I’d beaten him to the pavement and William had saved him from my murderous rage.
This was the blood of William’s mortal blood, not a product of his demonic nature, like me. This was William’s true son. No wonder I’d instinctively made him as such a threat to me and to my place in my world. I looked back and forth between the woman and the son. How much worse could this possibly get? No, don’t ask that, I chided myself. Call me a pessimist, but I’m a firm believer that there’s nothing so bad it can’t get any worse, especially where vampires are concerned.
So much for poker faces. William’s face registered the total shock of a man whose world has just changed forever. More changes would ripple outward like the ringing echo of a hammer on steel. Me, Melaphia, and most of all, Eleanor would all suffer the shock waves from this revelation.
“William,” the blond woman whispered, her eyes veiled as if to hide her true emotions from the vampire who had her in his grasp.
“Diana,” William breathed.
Ten
William
Humans have a ridiculous saying: What does
n’t kill you makes you stronger.
It’s a lie.
What doesn’t kill you might just as easily make you wish you were dead. Or make you yearn to kill someone else. I’m a master at hiding my intentions and my feelings. But here, standing at the end of night staring at the face I’d mourned for over five hundred years, I had no feelings to hide. Stunned is too modest a word, and vampires are rarely stymied by emotion. After all, killing is our business, our purpose, and our sport.
In this case, however, my own weakness—the black hole of my long existence—literally paralyzed me. There was a great buzzing in my ears. If I could have raised my arm, I had no idea whether my numb fingers would draw Diana forward into an embrace or my fist would plunge into Hugo’s chest. My hands spasmed and I almost felt the weight and wetness of his heart as I squeezed it into pulp. Anger before love. Killing before…forgiving? Had Diana known about me for these centuries and stayed away? Did she blame me for—
Will.
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. If I didn’t move I might simply collapse. The great rebel leader, William Thorne, killed by his own love…or hate. Impossible to separate them at the moment. From an infinite distance I heard myself speak. An amazing thing, that, since I would’ve sworn there was no air left in my frozen lungs.
“I would advise you to stay on the ship today until we can make arrangements for you. I’ll send word tomorrow after sunset.” Then I turned, put one foot in front of the other, and walked away. If Hugo or one of his kin had shoved a spear through my back at that moment, I would have thanked them.
I felt and heard Jack trying to get my attention. I could barely focus on his face. He should’ve known better than to step in front of me. Surrounded by treachery on all fronts I lashed out, knocking him to the ground.
“Live or die,” I snarled. “I don’t care. Stay away from me.”
I walked, tempted by the too easy solution of simply sitting down on a bench in the closest square and waiting for the sun.
My son…alive. A blood drinker…like me. What horrific sin had I committed to merit this? What coincidence had brought him the fate he’d escaped as a boy? He’d grown to manhood and then—Reedrek must have gone back for him, completing the task of enslaving my entire family.
Diana.
The sight of her had struck me dumb with joy. Joy that was immediately deadened by betrayal. I stumbled and had to stop for a moment and find a wall to support me. The monstrous flare of hate and anger inside me nearly drove me to the ground. Doubled over, I searched for air. The dank air of tombs and old bones filled my lungs, calling my name.
I had to go on. To walk, to breathe. Otherwise I’d never know the final, bitter truth of all the ways Reedrek had won.
The next time I took stock of my progress, I was standing outside the locked gates of Colonial. Three more blocks and I would be home. I would be—
Eleanor’s worry touched my mind amid the chaos. I turned my head in her direction, but she seemed as remote to my existence as the moon. If I was truly cursed then all those around me were doomed as well. How could I ever touch Eleanor again when Diana—
The vein of agony I’d patched and hidden opened, spilling forth. A wail rose in my throat and I had no strength to beat it back. Gripping the iron gates I looked toward the silent heaven and let out the howl of a dying wolf, a guttural sound of the drowning of all hope. Ancient pain blended with new in a sound so piercing no human ears could withstand it. I felt the iron bars of the fence bend under my hands.
My family had just been murdered again in front of my eyes. The facts that they still lived, that I still lived, were sources of woe, not relief. My wail set free the caged animal I’d tamed for so long. Rational thought fled. Within the blink of an eye I vaulted the fence. Instead of hiding my existence, I would flaunt it. Fury drove me, first to the dead. I wanted to kill them all over again. Ghede, loa of the dead, indeed. No entreating ceremony, this. My hate needed purpose, warfare, destruction. This moldy home where the lucky dead rested in peace would be my first battleground.
I took off my jacket and set it aside, then rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. The first tomb I saw belonged to John Martingale, Presbyterian minister, 1809 to 1862. I brought my fist down on the stone. “Wake up, old John. Fire, fear, foe! The devil has finally come for his due.” Within a few seconds the stone lay in shards on the grass. I reached inside and scrabbled among the dust until I found the unfortunate John’s skull. “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.” I tucked the skull under my arm and proceeded to the next grave marker.
The sky was overcast with drizzling rain, but growing lighter. I could feel the nagging threat of sunrise under my skin by the time I reached the other side of the cemetery. Humans were stirring. Car lights reflected on the damp pavement: off to work, to the next day in the futile few years allotted to the living. I looked back once along the path of havoc I’d wreaked on stone and earth and bones but felt little more than warmed up. With poor John’s skull in one hand, I made for the tunnels.
“Have I mentioned this city is mine?” I said, to the wary occupants of the nearest warmer-than-the-winter-air tunnel. I bowed to the three men and one woman, the hopeless and homeless taking shelter from the rain. “William Thorne, at your service. And this—” I held up worthy John’s skull. “—is Mr. John Martingale, one of the illustrious former religious leaders of the city.” I held the attention of all but one in the group, he being fast asleep. “I daresay brother John did more by living and dying than the four of you put together.”
The single female of the group scooted back closer to the men. Better the devil you know…They were beginning to be afraid.
Good.
I moved closer and offered the skull to the smaller of the two males. “Would you hold this for a moment?”
With the slow movement of a sleepwalker, or one who does not wish to believe his eyes, he nodded and took the dusty trophy of my cemetery war. As soon as it left my grip, I seized the other male by the throat, then clamped my free hand around the neck of the female.
“Ta-ta, just now,” I said to the one left holding the skull. “Take good care of worthy John.”
I dragged the now-struggling unfortunates farther into the darkness of the tunnels to have my way with them, as it were. The simple life of a true-born vampire had eluded me for so long, weighed down as I was with conscience and remorse.
Pain had freed me from those human concerns. I would kill and eat at will. The world be damned—like the rest of us.
“This should be perfect,” I said. Dropping the female to gasp gulps of air on the tunnel floor, I bit deeply into the male with a hunger so ravenous that I nearly tore his head from his shoulders. Blood spurted into the air, splashing the wall behind him, my face, my chest. Damn. A waste of good blood. How had I let myself get so out of practice? As the last few beats of his heart pumped, I sucked in what remained. Then I dropped him to the floor and went for my second course.
She’d crawled a few feet in some remote hope of getting away from me. “Not possible, my dear,” I said, sitting next to her and lifting her into my lap. I wouldn’t waste this one. “I will have your life. Consider yourself lucky that I don’t want your soul as well.”
She stilled at my words and a tiny shaft of admiration struck me. It seemed that dying would be less humiliation than living had been. She whimpered when my fangs penetrated her neck, but she didn’t cry out. How could any mere mortal, or immortal for that matter, man ever divine the workings of a woman’s mind or heart?
I closed my heart to the images bombarding me. Tilly as a lovely young woman, Olivia in her leather, Eleanor in her gypsy glory…and Diana. As my victim drew in a final gasp of air, I felt her spirit slip away. In those seconds, my grief overtook me. I realized that this poor hapless victim was free, while I remained trapped, forever it seemed, in my own personal maze of torture.
By God, I defy you to stop me now. As the f
eeding rush mixed with the rising of the sun beyond the tunnels took me over, I leaned my head back and remembered no more.
Jack
I lay on my back, looking up at the night sky and wishing I didn’t ever have to get up again but could stay here until the sun rose and burned me to ashes. My head rang with William’s blow and his words rattled around in my brain like a steel pellet in a pinball machine. My sire didn’t care if I lived or died as long as I got out of his sight. That hurt a helluva lot worse than my chin.
When I sat up a few seconds later, he was gone. Instead I saw that little punk bastard—Will, his name was—smirking at me. He said, “Big, bad Dad showed you, now didn’t he?”
“Mind yourself, boy,” Hugo said. “We are visitors here. Guests, if I may be so presumptuous. Our arrival is bound to provoke some anxiety, unannounced as it was.”
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my chin or what was left of it. “You could say that.” And they said I had a gift for understatement.
Hugo said, “William and I have much to discuss when he masters his emotions. He needs some time to reconcile himself to new realities. It will be difficult for him at first.”
No thanks to you. I wanted to take a swing at the guy for the way he sprang Diana’s existence on William, but my hands were not exactly clean on that score either, so I stifled the impulse. “That’s very…understanding of you.” I figured I might as well be as diplomatic as possible since I was outnumbered. I couldn’t even count on Werm to be on my side in a fight. Evidently Will was his new bosom buddy.
Right now Werm looked as bewildered as anybody. “Werm, why don’t you get on home now?” I said, and jerked my head in the direction of his parents’ house. With everything else I had on my mind, I didn’t want to have to worry about his safety around these new vamps.
“He’s with me now, aren’t you, mate?” Will put his arm around Werm’s shoulder and squeezed him hard enough to make him wince. Werm looked at me with that deer-in-the-headlights expression he got whenever he was in something over his head.
